"They included a link to a blog post by Economics Editor Robert Peston. The request was believed to have been made by a person who had left a comment underneath the article."

Now that's a good example of a feature fighting the product. Disable article commenting: you might miss out on engagement and subsequent pageviews. Enable commenting: you might get the article de-listed from Google. Allow anonymous commenting: you invite trolls (such as jezabel/violent GIF swarm). Require (partially) verified identities: you risk takedown requests.